


Excelsior

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Chatlogs, Humor, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you make a relationship work when four people are involved? Spreadsheets, obviously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking this would be an interesting dynamic and then things got a bit out of control...

It starts, as most things in her life involving the triplets do, with Hu tapping her on the shoulder outside her room as she reaches the top of the stairs. The three of them are standing at a stiff parade rest when she turns around, shoulders plastered to each other's. 

"Uh," he says, "we need to talk." 

"If you're not busy," Jin chimes in. 

"I have time," Mako answers, giving them one of her rare, contented smiles and taking a step down to stand at eye-level with them. 

Cheung's shoulders stiffen and he sighs, looking around the corridor to make sure it's empty. "Well," he says, "we... were wondering if you might be interested in one of us." 

"Because all three of us," Hu clarifies when Mako's face turns a deep, feverish red and the smile slides off her face, "have feelings for you." 

"Don't ah, take this as us demanding an answer," Jin says quickly, hands held stiffly at his sides, the three of them taking pains to hang back and look non-threatening, "or forcing you to pick right now." 

Cheung nods. "If you're not into any of us, we get it, we'll back off. You're our friend first, Mako, that's important to us." 

"And if you are," Hu says, his head canting to the side, lips curved slightly into a cocky smirk (they are, Mako remembers suddenly, quite skilled at reading body language), "don't worry about us fighting." He slings his arms around his brothers' waists, tugging them close enough to bump hips. 

"We just want each other to be happy," Cheung agrees, "and you as well." 

Mako slowly lowers her face to the binder in her arms to pull herself together, then straightens up, her shoulders pulling back, eyes meeting all three of theirs in turn. "I can only pick one?" 

The brothers look at each other in confusion before regarding Mako again. "Probably for the best?" Hu suggests cautiously, "I mean, Jin'd feel pretty left out if-- OW!" 

"I mean," Mako says before Jin and Hu can start fighting in earnest, "all three of you are very special to me. I don't think I could choose." 

"So you're not interested," Cheung probes, looking irritated. "You can be honest with us, I don't want any misunderstandings." 

Mako bites her lip, seems to steel herself. "I'm interested," she explains slowly, "equally, for different reasons, and I don't want to hurt any of you." 

Hu's eyes narrow, the corners of his mouth pulling up. "Did she just..." 

"Mako," Cheung says, knowing that for all the time she spends in Hong Kong, she was born and raised in Japan (and if there's one thing the Japanese are, it's vague), "does that mean you would be alright with all three of us?" 

Jin rubs his nose, looking down at the floor, then up at Mako. "We were kind of hoping for that anyway, weren't we?" 

"If I said yes?" 

The Weis look at each other, an entire conversation flashing between them faster than Mako can follow. Then they look at her, smiling as nervously as she's feeling. 

"We'll make it work." 

* * *

"I know we said we'd make this work," Cheung mutters over the notebook, a messy scrawl of lists and diagrams laid out on the pages, "but it's a bit complicated with four people." He crosses something out, then writes something in the margin before ripping out the entire page, crumpling it up and lobbing it into the trashcan across the room. "Jin, notebook." 

Jin pulls his laptop toward himself, popping it open and booting up Excel. "One column for each of us," Cheung says as Jin starts typing, idly sketching out the layout of a chart into his own notebook. "Green for 'tried it-liked it', red for 'tried it-don't like it', blue for 'haven't tried it-want to', yellow for 'haven't tried it-not interested'. Green and red for 'yes' and 'no', too. We can add rows as we go." 

"First row?" 

"Something basic. Movies. No for me." 

"Yes for me," Mako says, nestled under Hu's arm, their feet propped up on the table. 

"I'm a yes," Jin says, filling in his slot. 

"Yes for me too." 

"So Mako," Cheung says, sounding proud of himself for coming up with such an elegant solution so quickly, "if you want to watch a movie, you can grab Jin and Hu. Videogames are all Hu. Jin likes to cook, if you want to do that sometimes, but we'll all come eat." 

"I'm sharing this file between the four of us," Jin says, typing furiously, "it'll be encrypted, we'll get pings whenever someone updates. Encrypting a chat function for all four of us too." 

Cheung looks up, checking his phone when it vibrates with the alert. "Private channels?" 

"Do we want private channels?" Hu asks. 

"Yes," Mako answers firmly. 

"Done." 

"And," Mako says, "about... new rows." 

Hu squeezes her shoulder and pulls her tightly against his side, dropping a soft kiss against her temple. "We're a lot older than you, so we'll follow your lead on that." 

"Take it as slow as you need to," Cheung tells her, reaching across the table and putting his hand on her knee, his palm warm on her skin as he digs his thumb under her kneecap, checking on a fairly recent injury. "We're not in a rush, either." 

Jin laughs, popping his laptop shut and settling in on Mako's other side, cheerfully taking the hand she holds out to him. "When you're comfortable with us, you can add whatever you want to try as well, one of us is bound to be up for it." 

* * *

>   
> **jwei:** hey nerd  
>  **jwei:** is this working?  
>  **cwei:** i'm getting it  
>  **hwei:** me too  
>  **mmori** i can't believe the biggest nerds i know are calling me a nerd

* * *

>   
> **mmori:** kissing?  
>  **jwei:** we kind of already do you didn't have to ask  
>  **cwei:** you can kiss us anytime we'd like that a lot 8)  
>  **mmori:** i mean 'making out'  
>  **hwei:** Y  
>  **jwei:** E  
>  **cwei:** S  
>  **mmori:** okay  
>  **mmori:** (¬‿¬)  
>  **hwei:** just to save you the trouble of asking, we're all fine with cuddling too and holding hands and all that other stuff  
>  **cwei:** no pda is probably best though  
>  **cwei:** too much attention  
>  **mmori:** okay  
>  **mmori:** thank you ♥

* * *

>   
> **hwei:** nudes?  
>  **hwei:** wow that's a lot of fast nos  
>  **cwei:** you put no too  
>  **jwei:** what's the point of having this category?  
>  **mmori:** it seems like a bad idea  
>  **hwei:** its really dangerous to have dick pics saved anywhere  
>  **hwei:** i just wanted to establish  
>  **hwei:** in case we were ever tempted  
>  **jwei:** 'in case i'm ever more tempted than i was when i put it down'  
>  **hwei:** shut up!

* * *

>   
> **mmori:** would you mind if i touched you while we were kissing?  
>  **cwei:** pretty sure that's fine with all of us  
>  **mmori:** i meant 'like that'  
>  **jwei:** yes for me. are you okay if we touched you too?  
>  **hwei:** same for me  
>  **cwei:** and me  
>  **mmori:** not yet please  
>  **cwei:** no rush  
>  **mmori:** thanks

>   
> **cwei:** mako  
>  **cwei:** don't thank us for not forcing you  
>  **cwei:** kill anyone who tries to make you do something you're not ready for  
>  **jwei:** or have us do it  
>  **mmori:** i know! i would!  
>  **mmori:** but it's not frustrating?  
>  **hwei:** our problem, not yours  
> 

* * *

>   
> **jwei:** hey so... oral is fine when she's up for it  
>  **hwei:** YOU FUCKING DOG  
>  **jwei:** IT JUST HAPPENED  
> 

* * *

>   
> **mmori:** where do we get condoms?  
>  **cwei:** j  & h just ran out to get some  
>  **cwei:** really ran, it was like watching the roadrunner and wile e coyote  
>  **mmori:** can i try it with you first? i know i'll be bad at this  
>  **cwei:** hu knows what he's doing better than i do  
>  **mmori:** i know  
>  **mmori:** but you wouldn't laugh at me as much  
>  **hwei:** are you sure mako?  
>  **hwei:** are you totally sure?  
>  **hwei:** are you positive?  
>  **hwei:** i won't laugh  
>  **hwei:** sorry that's a lie i'm laughing right now but are you sure mako  
>  **jwei:** i'm taking his phone away  
>  **jwei:** DON'T FUCK THIS UP C  
> 

>   
> **mmori:** also massages?  
>  **mmori:** leaning over a keyboard all day  
>  **hwei:** cheung is pretty bad at them but me and jin are good  
>  **mmori:** why...?  
>  **jwei:** big teddy bear  
>  **jwei:** bro can snap bones if he wanted to but he's too chicken to give a real massage  
>  **cwei:** i don't want to hurt anyone!  
>  **hwei:** once you guys are done we can drop by  
>  **hwei:** (and you can tell us how he is ;D)  
>  **cwei:** i'm locking the door and changing the access code  
> 

* * *

>   
> **hwei:** hey mako anything you really want to try that you think we might say no to? i'm curious  
>  **mmori:** #43 on [this list]?  
>  **hwei:** pegging what is that? why did we decide to do this in english?  
>  **jwei:** lmgtfy.com  
>  **jwei:** because chinese is too vague  
>  **cwei:** and japanese is even vague...er  
>  **hwei:** more vague  
>  **jwei:** (yes for me btw)  
>  **hwei:** does that actually feel good  
>  **cwei:** wikipedia says yes  
>  **cwei:** so... sure  
>  **hwei:** omg we met mako when she was 11 now she's telling us about her weird kinks  
>  **hwei:** i want out  
>  **cwei:** YOU ASKED  
>  **jwei:** YOU ASKED  
>  **hwei:** i mean also yes mako i think we're unanimous on this  
>  **hwei:** but we totally corrupted her  
>  **mmori:** ♥

>   
> **hwei:** how is this going to work with three of us though?  
>  **hwei:** one at a time? all at once? do they sell strap ons like that? we need to get our hands on one of those right?  
>  **jwei:** i'm sure they do...  
>  **cwei:** not all at once no way  
>  **hwei:** but do i have to do this alone?  
>  **hwei:** no moral support?  
>  **hwei:** what if i need moral support?  
>  **cwei:** mako's not an echidna  
>  **jwei:** what do echidnas have to do with  
>  **jwei:** never mind just googled

>   
> **hwei:** i don't know why we didn't see this coming  
>  **hwei:** mako was always like this  
>  **hwei:** pick another jaeger to rebuild they said  
>  **hwei:** 'no i want this one'  
>  **hwei:** we can fix the core they said  
>  **hwei:** 'give me a new one, also an upgraded plasmacaster and new hinge joints'  
>  **hwei:** it'll cost millions they said  
>  **hwei:** 'i don't care ♥'  
>  **jwei:** are you okay?  
>  **jwei:** if you're nervous you could just say no  
>  **hwei:** i'm not nervous

>   
> **hwei:** ok last time this worked out great so if there's anything really off the wall you want to try mako  
>  **mmori:** can i try tying you down?  
>  **cwei:** sure  
>  **jwei:** sounds like fun  
>  **hwei:** whoa i dont know how i feel about that  
>  **cwei:** are we really doing this again  
>  **jwei:** just say yes you always feel left out  
>  **jwei:** and then you like it anyway  
>  **cwei:** and i don't want to have to hold your hand through it  
>  **cwei:** again  
> 

* * *

>   
> **mmori:** great drop! what do you want for dinner?  
>  **jwei:** doesn't matter  
>  **jwei:** we're sleeping off the drift come over  
>  **hwei:** we can get dinner together later  
>  **hwei:** and we haven't had any time off recently  
>  **mmori:** ... is there room?  
>  **cwei:** don't be so 客氣 we wouldn't ask if there was no room  
>  **jwei:** we are actually just sleeping too that was a six hour fghgtasfj  
>  **mmori:** are you ok?  
>  **jwei:** dropped the phone on my face  
>  **jwei:** come kiss it better  
>  **mmori:** ♥♥♥

* * *

>   
> **cwei:** hey mako  
>  **hwei:** this is going to be kind of creepy  
>  **jwei:** kind of?  
>  **cwei:** we set this up before every drop to send if we don't disable it for two days so  
>  **jwei:** best case scenario we're in a foreign city with amnesia  
>  **jwei:** but we'll assume that's not what happened  
>  **cwei:** we just want you to know that we're proud of you  
>  **hwei:** and we don't say this much but we're really lucky to have met you  
>  **hwei:** it's rare enough to find one person who's drift compatible, we were lucky enough to have three... each  
>  **jwei:** and you have four! always trying to one up us  
>  **cwei:** be happy  & healthy mako  
>  **cwei:** if becket steps over the line we'll haunt his ass for you  
>  **jwei:** we won't literally hang out inside his ass but you get our point  
>  **jwei:** also delete these logs when you get a chance, it'd be bad if tendo stumbled onto them  
>  **hwei:** oh and tell the marshall he can have the rest of our tea stash  
>  **jwei:** and there was something else i know i'm forgetting  
>  **cwei:** i'm gonna cut us off here before they turn this into a grocery list  
>  **cwei:** we're together, we're fine. we just need to know that you are too, okay?  
>  **jwei:** WAIT I REMEMBERED  
>  **jwei:** we love you, nerd  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone prompted me for the AU where they really did end up amnesiac in a foreign city :')

The room is dark when Hu blinks awake, the sound of an engine rumbling under his back and up through his body. The familiar pitch and roll of an old freighter gives him a decent enough idea of what he’s in, but given that his last memory was of a fist to his face in a smelly underground arena in Hong Kong’s slums, it’s totally useless in trying to determine his actual location. He stumbles to the door for the light switch, navigating with help from a full moon shining dimly in through the porthole.

Jin is laid out on a bunk across the room, and he stirs awake when the light hits his face. He looks— _enormous_. And just as confused as Hu feels when he glances down and flexes his arm.

When the hell did they put on that much muscle?

There’s one more cot set up in a darker corner of the room, Cheung still down, on his back. His head’s been wrapped under a thick layer of bandages, but he’s breathing, and when Jin puts a hand to his cheek, Cheung moves into it, brows wrinkling. He doesn’t wake up, which is worrying, but not quite as much as the gaping blank space where what looks like ten years used to be.

「Big problem,」 Jin says as he grabs Cheung’s hand and settles on the bed, one leg curled under himself.

「Yeah,」 Hu says, moving for the door and slipping out. He comes onto an empty corridor, climbs up a ladder, then another to reach the deck. The watch is snoring at his post, his clothes similar to the ones Hu’s wearing, so he doesn’t worry too much about being spotted. A piece of paper with ‘out of order’ messily scrawled on it flutters by the main communications unit.

「Map says we’re a few miles off the coast of Yokohama,」 announces Hu as he enters the room again, 「probably pulling into port by morning. 」

「Do we know what the crew wants to do with us?」

「No. Three lifeboats, though.」

Jin pushes Cheung’s shirt up, revealing a torso covered almost entirely in purple-black welts and bruises, burns in the shape of circuits seared into his side. 「Let’s go. We need to find a… a hospital or something.」

「Can we move him? He looks like he got stepped on by a kaiju.」

「No choice.」

The docks are busy, but not so crowded that Jin and Hu can’t get through it unnoticed. They take a winding route into the city, Cheung’s arms slung over their shoulders, all three of them in old work pants and oversized hoodies, heavy boots appropriated from a closet on the ship they woke up on. Jin leaves his brothers on a park bench, strolling easily to a street lined with bars, all of them open through the night.

He falls into step behind a drunk salaryman stumbling home, casually bumps into him and relieves him of his wallet before turning a corner and emptying it of cash. He drops the wallet beside the entrance of the bar he’d seen the man leave, then picks another mark. Men in suits nice enough to be fitted and pressed, wealthy enough to have cash left after a night out drinking. Big cities are all the same, whether it’s Hong Kong or somewhere else.

Jin’s reactions are rusty, the movements involved in pickpocketing unfamiliar in a body so much larger than the one he remembers, but his victims are too trashed to notice and react anyway. He returns with a fat wad of thousand-yen and ten thousand-yen bills in his pocket, then hails a cab for the three of them to Yokohama’s Chinatown.

They find a small hostel, book a private room and Hu chats up the girl at the counter while Jin drags himself and his brother up to their room. The place has free wi-fi, communal computers. Hu manages to book an appointment with a doctor who makes housecalls and speaks Chinese, on a recommendation from the hostel’s owner.

It’s mid-morning when Jin finally thinks to check the date— and the news. Cheung’s awake, sitting up, and Hu’s scarfing down a few onigiri from the local Family Mart when he bursts back into their room with the printout.

「Breach’s closed!」

「How long was it open for?」 Cheung asks, fiddling with a bottle of tea while Hu tears the packaging off another riceball with his teeth.

「It’s 2025.」

「Shit,」 Hu says around a mouthful of plastic, switching the bottle in Cheung’s hand with the food. 「You dig up anything on what we’ve been doing?」

「We’re… Jaeger pilots. Summary in there, it’s all pretty well documented.」 Then, bitterly, 「Turns out we lost against a category IV and the PPDC thinks we’re dead. Looks like big bro took a hit to the head, and the drift knocked us out too.」

Cheung lets his head drop into the crook of Hu’s neck, gingerly relaxing into the arm his brother slings over his shoulders. 「That sounds about right. Three-way drift, though?」

Jin flashes him a cocky grin. 「Was there ever any doubt?」

「We need to contact someone we know, except we don’t remember anybody,」 Cheung mutters, already planning, 「and then fly back to Hong Kong, which we can’t do without passports, or just convince someone we are who we are, which we can’t exactly do without IDs or drivesuits.」

「Is there some sort of not-actually-dead-PPDC-hotline?」 asks Hu, practical as ever. 「I feel like I used to know a number that’ll take us right to the top, but…」

「Nothing concrete,」 Jin sighs. Then he sits on his bed, kicking his feet up and leaning back. 「I still know Liu’s number, let’s see if it hasn’t changed.」

「Tomorrow,」 Cheung says. 「’M tired.」

Hu helps shift pillows around so he can lie flat, gently lowering Cheung’s head and shoulders to the mattress before moving to settle in next to him. Two twin-sized beds was the best they could do, with the only private room still open— but Jin makes a sound and gestures for him to move. 「Sleep over here. If you turn over and squish him, you’ll mess his ribs up even more.」

Liu’s number hasn’t changed in ten years— at least not on his personal phone. He has connections in Yokohama who hook the triplets up with enough cash to tide them over for weeks, no questions asked except for a quick videochat to confirm their identity. He seems to breeze over the gaps in their memory, happy enough just to see them alive, and also puts them in touch with Herc (who nearly spills his coffee all over himself when the three of them pop up on his screen).

When they finally touch down in Hong Kong in a PPDC chopper, Herc, Mako and Raleigh greet them on the helipad, along with the entire Crimson Typhoon crew. The three of them have done enough research to act normal, picking out faces and dropping the occasional name. Old habits die hard; showing any kind of weakness still puts them on edge, but Mako volunteers to walk them back to their room and Raleigh gives them each exuberant (and carefully returned) hugs before letting them go.

It’s the way they’re looking around, and Hu’s ‘ _whoa, Mako’s gotten big,_ ' that tips her off to it. Hu was hoping she'd find out anyway, trusting his gut over any lingering paranoia.

「It’s good to have you back,」 Mako says politely, shutting the door to their room behind her. 「What do you remember?」

「Not much,」 Cheung says immediately, 「other than what we could find out online.」

「Which actually is kind of a lot,」 Hu chimes in.

「What’re you looking so sad for, nerd? Not happy to see us?」

Cheung and Hu give Jin a look, as if responding to a signal. Mako swallows hard before mustering a smile and stepping into a tight hug, squeezing her arms around Jin’s neck as he lifts her. Cheung and Hu do the same, but Cheung passes on picking her up, his injuries still only halfway healed. It takes him a long second to link his reluctance to let her go with the feeling that they’d been missing something the last few weeks, that despite all the information they’d found online, there was some important, painfully obvious fact they were passing over—

The familiarity of her weight and the smell of generic PPDC soap under machine grease hit the three of them like a truck, so fast and hard that Jin stumbles back, looking at Mako like she’d slapped him across the face. Hu grabs her by the shoulders, immediately loosening his grip when she winces, but catching onto her expression, some mix of pain and optimism.

「Mako? Hey, you— don’t cry, c’mon—」

「It uh, it might be the drift,」 Cheung says slowly, trying to sort through the memories as they flood back to him, 「but which one of us…?」

Mako laughs, the sound almost involuntary, swiping a hand over her eyes and sniffing once before she answers. 「All three of you, you big nerds.」

Jin scratches the back of his head, warmth flooding his chest at the sight of her smile-- a genuine one this time. 「I was kind of hoping you’d… we’ve been over this haven’t we?」

At Mako’s nod, Hu curls an arm around her waist, pinning her back against his chest as Jin hooks a hand behind her knee and hitches her legs up around his waist, both of them easily lifting her to eye level. 「Sorry we’re late,」 Hu gasps against the back of her neck, pressing a kiss to the skin under her ear, another along her jaw, then a few more down to her shoulder. 「Sorry we weren’t here. Sorry we couldn’t be with you.」

Jin’s got his forehead pressed to hers, one arm bracing her knee against his hip, the other hand tangled lightly in her hair. 「We’re back now, alright? No more deployments even if we wanted to.」

She’s seen the three of them drop trainees in the Kwoon in under ten seconds, help take down more than a dozen kaiju, and watched footage from their early street fighting days uploaded to YouTube. Mako’s also thrown down with them personally, not a single one of the Weis taking it easy on her in the ring. That impression sticks harder than any other— and for all the time they’ve spent together, she’ll probably never stop being surprised at how gentle they are, with each other and with her.

「You don’t have a choice,」 Mako tells him, reaching for Cheung’s hand over Jin’s shoulder. She knows they’ll miss Crimson Typhoon more than anything, and it’s been a part of her own life for so long Typhoon’s absence in the hangar hurt almost as much as knowing her own Jaeger’s been blown to bits miles under the ocean. Still, it doesn’t hold a candle to knowing they’re alive. 「No Jaeger.」

Cheung snorts when he takes her hand, pressing their palms together and lacing his fingers through hers. 「Then you’re in luck, aren’t you?」

「Are you gonna be alright, Mako?」 asks Hu after a few seconds, mumbling the question against her shoulder, her free hand laid over his wrist.

「The Marshal,」 Cheung adds gently as Mako lowers her face to Jin’s chest and he lets her down, still squished between the younger two, 「you can take it from us, he doesn’t regret a thing. Except maybe not getting to spend more time with you.」

「’Cause… that’s what we were thinking.」 After a pause, Hu adds, 「Probably Raleigh too.」

「I know.」 She sniffs once, then looks up, eyes dry. Mako repeats, 「I know.」

As for what she meant— Cheung, Jin, and Hu hear it anyway, the three of them grinning at her like she’d brought them the sun after a long, cold winter.

_Welcome home; thank you for coming back to me._


End file.
